A closer look at the Toyota concept car that wants to be your best friend

Toyota unveiled its latest concept car at the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday night — and it's designed to be your pal.

The concept car comes with an artificial intelligence assistant named Yui that can learn more about you over time.

Scroll down for a closer look at Toyota's newest concept car:

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Concept-i is Toyota's latest concept car and shows how the company is taking a gradual approach to self-driving vehicles.

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While many concept cars are built without a steering wheel to hint at a driverless future, Toyota kept the feature and built the car around the notion of having a human behind the wheel.

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The clearest example of that driver focus is Yui, Toyota's artificial intelligence assistant. Toyota says Yui is capable of reading human emotions to learn more about a driver over time.

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Yui's primary purpose is safety. Gill Pratt, the CEO of the Toyota Research Institute, said at CES that Yui can help retain a driver's focus by performing mild tasks, like turning the radio on or engaging the driver in a conversation.

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Toyota wants to use AI to make cars safer because we are a long way off from achieving fully driverless technology.

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"None of us in the automobile or IT industries are close to achieving true Level 5 autonomy. We are not even close," Pratt said at CES.

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So while Toyota says it's still pursuing fully self-driving cars, it's building vehicles that can be safer while a driver is playing a more active role. The Concept-i is symbolic of that approach, Pratt said at the event.

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Aside from improving driver safety, Yui also uses lights and sounds to welcome passengers and make the driving experience a bit more fun.

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The car itself is devoid of touchscreens, as Yui can relay information on a giant heads-up display.

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See? No room for driver distractions.

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As for the car itself, it has a very clean and minimalist interior with only two seats in the back.

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It has a large panoramic sunroof.

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As well as scissor doors for dramatic entry.

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But since this is a concept car in today's day and age, Toyota built in display system for when the vehicle is driving autonomously.